With no hot water for the showers we have gone to combat mode. Probably no need for underwear either. Since overflow in most military campgrounds is dry camping (no electric, water, sewer or cable hookups) this is still a pleasure even without hot water. After all they do call what we do —camping.
Ate breakfast out, went to church and the commissary and will now play golf before the super bowl.
The maximum stay in a campsite is 60 days. Then you have to vacate the site and rotate to overflow behind anyone else already in overflow. Then when your turn comes up you can move into a non sewer site and go on the list for a sewer site. Overflow is like purgatory – partway between heaven (sewer site) and hell (no site at all). Today was our turn to rotate into the dreaded overflow. As it turned out we got lucky. Instead of the old overflow area where campers share 20 amp electrical service and have no cable TV, we were assigned a space close behind regular sites and were able to plug into 50 amp service and cable TV. Below is regular overflow and below that is our temp site.
The name comes from Latin. Corvus meaning crow and marinus meaning pertaining to the sea – sea crow. To dry off they strike an erect pose with wings outstretched facing the wind. Since some of the ones below are not facing the way others are facing I would say they can not figure out which way the wind is blowing. They are sitting on the fishing dock across from the 11th fairway of the Pelican Point Course. I have been told that two alligators still live here but we have not seen them yet.
I got curious about where campers here were from. Couldn’t see all license plates because some people were not home and I did not want to walk into their site to see rear plates but the following gives some idea:
FL 16, NY 2, MI 4, AZ 2, PA 6, TN 3, MA 4, NE 1, IL 4, TX 5, MO 2, WI 3, KS 2, KY 3, AL 3, CT 1, SD 2, OHIO 6, WA 2, MT 1, MN 1, AK 1, VA 1,
Additionally, the Uncle Sam figure below is on 33 sites. These identify site occupants as friends of Dick and Marie who have come here every year forever and have given them as gifts. They left the day we got here this year so we are hoping that is not a sign that they want Uncle Sam back.
The Community Activities Center contains a Ticket office (good deals), internet cafe(with computers), wireless center, Oasis ( snack bar)($3.50 breakfast), and Pizza Pub.
CAC
Pizza Pub ($4.95 pizza buffet every M, W and F
Guest of honor
We always thought that Jim had eyes in the back of his head
This is the diving school for the entire military except for the Seals.
Below looks like a sphere but it is really a cylinder. On the bottom is a huge tank and on top there are five compartments where up to 10 divers can live for weeks for saturation diving. In saturation diving divers are brought down to a desired depth (pressure) and kept there for extended periods of time. This permits them to get more work done rather than use so much time compressing and de compressing.
This is the Quarterdeck of the Dive School
At the base there are a number of hover craft with which they experiment.(notice that I did not end the sentence with a preposition). A hover craft has four engines(really powerful ones) and two huge air fans. These things can carry tanks, lots of soldiers or Marines or other stuff and travel about 50 MPH or more. They blow up a lot of dust/dirt/water when they hover as you can see below.
Yesterday 38 of us FamCampers toured the Navy Base on the West side of Panama City. The next several days will cover that tour. We first saw the H-60 Blackhawk below and then the old standby: the Huey bottom.
Once a year, our friendly social host, Ron, has a bean soup night. Campers provide bags of beans (any kind etc) and he makes the soup in a couple of days. Attendees then also bring side dishes (like deviled eggs, etc) so it is a combination bean soup and pot luck dinner. It was a musical night at the campground.
